Is Akufo-Addo being considered for a noble award?

Opinions on Thursday, October 1, 2020

Columnist: K. Badu

2020-10-01

If the numerous and well-received social intervention policies and programs of the Akufo-Addo government go ahead as scheduled, the widening social mobility gap will likely be minimized.

Take, for example, by introducing Free SHS, Akufo-Addo is graciously working toward reducing the canker of poverty.

Education, in theory, drives the development of a nation, therefore the logical approach to improving accessibility and quality is not through political rhetoric and broken promises, but through well thought out policies like the SHS. free from Akufo-Addo.

So, given the enormous benefits that education offers, it is indeed prudent and somewhat progressive for the Akufo-Addo government to attempt to bridge the widening gulf of social inequalities by rationally distributing national resources of free SHS.

Furthermore, the fact that the former ambivalent NDC government unnecessarily left behind enormous debt amid harsh socioeconomic living standards, is indeed commendable for the Akufo-Addo government to allow itself to implement the seemingly admirable social intervention. , although expensive. as Free SHS.

If we walk down memory lane, a unique campaign message that dominated the 2008, 2012 and 2016 general elections was the Free SHS Poverty Alleviation.

While candidate Akufo-Addo and his PNP promised to implement Free SHS if elected to power, candidate Mahama and his NDC were vigorously campaigning against politics everywhere.

Sadly, however, Ghanaians wrongly accepted NDC’s “message” in two consecutive elections (2008 and 2012) and rejected the seemingly advantageous offer from Free SHS.

But lo and behold, on December 7, 2016, the good folks of Ghana saw the light of day and gave Free SHS’s (Akufo-Addo) ‘promising’ massive endorsement.

However, to his credit, within a year after his four-year term, President Akufo-Addo esteemedly implemented the Free SHS much to the delight of Ghanaian parents and their children.

Sadly, however, none other than former President Mahama has been conveniently and persistently criticizing Akufo-Addo for implementing the free SHS policy, allegedly at the expense of other development projects (see: ‘Free SHS paralyzing other sectors-Mahama, classfmonline.com/ghanaweb.com, 02/24/2018).

Former President Mahama was said to have lamented during one of the NDC unit health walks: “The problem facing this government and it is in their own interest, is that Free Senior High School is absorbing all the fiscal space they have. and almost every money you have, you have to put it into Free Senior High School. So you can’t pay District Assemblies Common Fund, you can’t pay NHIS (National Health Insurance Scheme), you can’t pay GET Fund (Ghana Education Trust Fund), you can’t pay other salaries and things because all his money goes to free upper secondary school. “

Observers can rightly draw an adverse inference from the earlier criticisms that Mahama does not like the Free SHS and is therefore unwilling to spend a large amount of money to implement the policy.

So it’s no wonder that Mahama and minority NDC operatives prefer “progressively free” (whatever that means) to completely free NPP.

In fact, unless I seem to be the worst performer in math, I cannot understand how and why the GH38 ‘progressively free SHS’ per NDC student is better than the NPP GH1844.27 per student per year.

Dear reader, is it not quite disturbing that after campaigning and voting against Free SHS poverty alleviation during the 2016 election, albeit unsuccessfully, NDC agents now have the gall to vehemently protest against the implementation of Free SHS?

But despite the initial demands, the Free SHS has been sufficient. The endless attacks and unfair criticism did not and could not bring down the plan.

Let’s be honest, if it’s not for nothing, the Free SHS policy will bring huge benefits to students, parents, and the nation at large.

Of course, universal free education has been introduced in various jurisdictions on our own continent, Africa.

It is therefore reassuring to say that, despite initial challenges, policy has been sufficient in those jurisdictions. So why not in Ghana?

In 2007, Uganda became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to introduce free universal secondary education. Under the high school scheme, students who earn specific grades on each of the four elementary school final exams study for free at participating public schools and private schools.

The Kenyan government, in 2002, declared a universal free primary school and followed up with a free secondary education program in 2008.

In Namibia, a former South African colony under apartheid, primary education was declared free in 2012, while secondary education became free as of 2016.

The Free SHS poverty alleviation policy, in fact, reinforces the United Nations vision of human development and the right to development.

Therefore, we must not lose sight of the fact that, according to the right to development, development is shifting from the conventional approach to the human rights approach, in which the focus is on equity and social justice (Mansell and Scot 1994).

It was in this context that the international community agreed to work in Valencia to help underdeveloped nations in accordance with the provisions of the UN Declaration on the Right to Development.

So far, the international community has made concerted efforts to realize the right to development by first implementing the eight Millennium Development Goals with a view to developing a global partnership for development (Alston 2005).

The MDGs apparently came to an end at the end of 2015 and were replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Under the Sustainable Development Goals, all countries would be obliged to meet the goals established in them (UN 2015).

Therefore, as the international community moves towards the implementation and monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals agenda for 2030, the human development approach continues to be useful for articulating development goals and improving people’s well-being. by ensuring a fair, sustainable and stable world.

In hindsight, human development, or the human development approach, is about expanding the richness of human life. It is an approach that focuses on people and their opportunities and options.

Human development actually focuses on improving people’s lives rather than assuming that economic growth will automatically lead to greater well-being for all.

In other words, human development is about giving people more freedom to live the lives they value. In effect, this involves developing people’s capacities and giving them the opportunity to improve their lives.

Take, for example, that educating large numbers of children would develop their skills, but it is of little or no use if they are denied access to jobs or do not have the right skills for the local job market.

Basically, human development is about more options. It’s about giving people opportunities.

The human development approach, developed by economist Mahbub Ul Haq, is summed up in the work of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on human capabilities, often framed in terms of whether people can “be” and “do” desirable things in the world. lifetime. Examples include: Beings: well fed, protected, healthy; Activities: work, education, voting, participation in community life (HDR 2015).

Since 1990, 2 billion people have emerged from low human development, extreme income poverty has been reduced by more than one billion. All regions of the world have seen progress in the Human Development Index (HDI) (HDI 2015).

In a grand scheme of things, the development process – human development – in the form of Akufo-Addo’s free SHS should at least create an environment for people, individually and collectively, to develop to their full potential and have a reasonable opportunity to lead productive and creative lives.

Finally, some of us, as a matter of excellence, will always choose Akufo-Addo’s SHS Comprehensively Free over Mahama’s SHS Progressively Free.